Almost Time for Wipeout

The Summer is almost here. I can tell. All of the good TV shows have either had their season finales or those finales will be upon us in the next few days. When these are through, at the end of the May Sweeps period, there is always a summer drought on TV. I usually use this drought to get caught up on other things...movies I have not seen, books I bought or borrowed but have not read, projects around the house.

The way I can tell summer is almost here is that there was just a commercial on TV for the absolutely brainless show, "Wipeout." I have seen this show a couple of times to see what the hullabaloo was all about. Basically grown men and women agree to jump from inflated obstacle to inflated moving obstacle, getting bounced off of them into a giant pit of mud and water. The obstacles get slippery pretty fast. People hit their heads, backs, necks on the obstacles. Frankly, just watching it, I am surprised nobody has died doing this inane show. It is a total train wreck to be sure. Is this really the best they have to offer us in the summer when they have a captive audience?

During the year we get all the TV writer's attention. They give us the medical dramas, the cliffhangers; the legal conundrums, the police cases ripped from the recent headlines, the sitcoms, the major TV stars and the 4 star reality shows like the Amazing Race. During the summer we get trash. We get things that were too lame to get onto the regular fall or winter TV rotation. We get contrived reality shows, dramas and comedies that were not quite ready for prime time and only had 8 episodes made; it is truly a vast wasteland and a good time to occupy yourself with more substantive activities.

I know this is kind of a fluff topic but considering the dearth of bad news this week--the continued and ever growing oil slick in the Gulf, the stock market tanking yet again, unrest in Thailand, the Koreas, Jamaica, etc., the thought of mindless television could possibly be just what the doctor ordered.

Instead of checking your 401K and watching it go down like a sinking ship, instead of imagining the worst case scenario in the Gulf..no more fishing ever, oil spreading all over the East coast beaches, gas prices skyrocketing, you can sit back and watch a bunch of morons being bounced all over the place off of large inflated tubes, balls, platforms into pits of mud. It is positively cave man-esque, but needed in these troubling times we live in. Maybe the TV execs actually have our best interests at heart. It is summer. We need a break, we need a break from all of the seriousness of daily life and they are going to give it to us in short order!! Enjoy!!